Monday, May 17, 2010

Modern Thinking: Better Than What We Stole From

We didn't like Robin Hood, so we made up something new and called it Robin Hood to trick the audience into seeing the movie we made, because we know that most people, unlike us, DO like Robin Hood. We are Hollywood.WHY is it more substantive? Because: It'sandHow many thing are wrong with this article?

Sounds like a basic mainstreaming of the tale, I figured after seeing pictures my hunch would be right. Film critic Ebert commented at how so many films now are loosing their joy and innocence which is a good point from him. I blame Dark Knight for continuing the trend, though oddly pale characters is a trend thats been around for awhile.

At Lampshade: Thats what I wonder for nearly every new film made! Where does that money go? And why nowhere beneficial to our supposed poor economy?

saw the movie, it sucked, more hack workmanship from ridley scott, the underlying theme of the film is anti-obama-pro-tea party!seems freaking austrailians cant keep their dumb ass opinions on americans poitics to their kiki sucking selves!scott,rupert murdoch,russell crowe, none of them have american citizenship but they sure have a lot of ignorant reactionary ideas about how america should be run,why doesnt anyone acknowledge that beck, palin,hannity and the rest all work for murdoch? a hack tabloid owner from austrailia,we should put a fence around that continent and keep them out!the only people being robbed are the suckers who pay to see this film and the money all goes to the robber baron hollywood exec types who continue to kill our fun!

"now he fights to free the powerless from an oppressive regime". You just read say: "wait a minute! 'to free the powerless'?" That reminds me of so many wars which hid economical interests...and JUST that!" I can't believe we're still being fed with this fake political crap from Hollywood.

At talkinggtj: Sounds less like a genuine opinion and more like an attempt to appeal to us because hey, if people that dillude themselves into liking it want to say why they can say "It has a message!". Funny how cheap old cartoons could get messages out clearly and fast but now it takes loads of money, 2 hours, and still isn't obvious unless if its enviorment related.

I noticed both Kali and Mike Fontanelli complained about the eye-gauging in Alice in Wonderland, but what's so bad about that? I mean, the movie had a lot of things wrong, but I don't see why having eye-gauging is so bad. The book is weird and a bit scary too. It's also a lot funnier than Tim Burton's movie, but I don't think a children movie should be devoid of all cruelty.

That said...well, I guess they have to change some things when they do a story that has been told so many times, but I agree that it's coming to a point when they just keep the characters names and they change almost everything else. That's too much. You can make spoofs or slightly modern versions but you should keep some of what make the story popular to begin with.

All of this modern, post millenial thinking has lead me to question just one thing:

"Where is all the colour?"

Everywhere I look it's either gunmetal grey, dirt brown, or pure mechanical RGB shades blasting my eyeballs out. Robin Hood doesn't even have his hat, so how do we know which generic browncoated thug is the hero? People would say that previous Robin Hoods are fruity:http://www.vintageculture.net/images/errol-flynn-robin-hood1.jpgBut they have a wonderful sense of theatre and iconic appearance that the current trend of culture doesn't want to hold onto - Clash of the Titans was another example of turning an iconic tale into something malformed. What do we HAVE now? Sleek, white faceless machines and dirty, grotty men playing in brown and grey muck. Can we get some artistry in here?

i saw the movie, and the thing that really didnt sit right for me was the maid marian remake... it was stupid. the movie is really more of a prequel to the traditional tale, or at least thats the feeling that i got from it cause robin wasnt an outlaw until the very end...however it was interesting in the majority. it would seem as though it was setting up the ending for a possible sequel in which the traditional tale is told... hollywood these days leaves everything open ended so that they can make a sequel if the first movie makes enough money for them. i cant believe that they are making another shrek movie...i guess i will never understand.

This is par for the course, actually. Another typical day in the New Hollywood - run by aging, out-of-touch hippies who still think it's 1968.

History repeats itself, but movie and TV executives never learn. During the studio publicity blitz for the Kevin Costner remake in 1991, the first order of business was to badmouth and degrade the classic Michael Curtiz/Errol Flynn version. That didn't go over too well with the public, as I remember.

This new film will probably be forgotten in approximately the same 20 years (or less.) Meanwhile, that hoary old "sexist" Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938 - 72 years ago, for chrissakes! - lives on. Here are a few of its honors, copied from Wikipedia:

*In 1995, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

*In 2001 the film came 84th in "The Best Films of All Time" as voted by channel 4.

*In 2001, the film appeared at #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list.

*In 2003, the main character, Robin Hood, appeared as the #18 Hero on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list.

*In 2005, the film appeared at #11 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores list.

You have something negative to say about every new movie out there. While I prefer the Errol Flynn version of the crusader for the poor. You still have to have hope that Hollywood will at some point produce something halfway different.

If you continue to have the same state of mind that crap will continue to be produced in Hollywood. Then studios will continue to go down that path of insincere cartoons. You have friends in high places why not try to convince them to stop.

Did they have a limit to renewerd something who existed before? Where i live, they have tons of creative films you can see since the last 10 years but the main problem is those movies can't survive without be financing by our Government. I hate to see in the end credits the Quebec and Canada's Government logo, it's like you can never done without them. Trust me, it screw a lot as Hollywood exec who never learn by their own mistakes.

Didn't we already play this particular videogame several times already? Not even the good grace to romanticise the pseudo-history for the plebs before sticking allegorical pins in it, since it's complete cobblers anyway. This is typical modern Hollywood, politicising a simulated place and time of which they have no historical equivalent to draw upon - it's like advocating gun laws in a Spaghetti Western.

Another thing I noticed about this movie, the new Bonds and the new Sherlock Holmes is that they usually claim to be more historical or faithful to the original sources. (They didn't say that about Burton's Alice cause that one was too obviously different). While I don't know all the original sources I'm pretty sure they also differ in diverse ways from the original thing, almost as much as the old adaptations.

I have read some of the Sherlock Holmes novels and maybe the new adaptation takes some things from Conan Doyle that we didn't see in the other movies, but it also differs from the spirit of the books in many ways.

So I guess it's the same thing with all those other movies, that may be some kind of formulaic talk to sell more tickets.

the 90's robin hood would of been a lot better if they had of cast that guy instead of Costner(something mel brooks pointed out in the awful "men in tights")

Zorro remake for a few years back was good because it was FUN.

I love Ridley Scott, he makes amazing mind blowing movies, but he seems like a very serious cat.

A good swashbuckler from a few years ago was Count of monte cristo(which has also been remade a bazillion times), staring james "jesus" cavezal and Richard Harris. It was made by the same director as the 90's robin hood, but it was tons better.Too bad nobody saw it.

Backing up J.F.: I've worked on flicks where big parts get tossed because the director/editors change their vision, or test marketing reveals a major weakness forcing expensive reshoots. Also, THE SIMPSONS costs a fortune per show because it's produced like a live action film (many alternate scenes made, and then edited down to the final product).

As for the current ROBIN HOOD: Ick.How much of that kind of Hollywood mentality is poisoning animation at present?

I'll stick to the WB classic and ROCKET ROBIN HOOD, thanks you. A pity R. Bakshi didn't have a bigger budget for the latter while he worked on it.

Meanwhile, any bets that the next version of CINDERELLA has the heroine either clobbering her stepfamily with mop, broom, kitchen utensils, or terrorizes them with the rapier she's secretly mastered by covertly watching the Prince she loves?

"Robbing Hood" used to turn up regularly in The Wizard of Id, (back when it was still being done by Hart & Parker, and was consistently funny and subversive.) He'd "steal from the wretch and give to the peer", (namely himself.)

Yeah who needs a fun, swash buckler type when we can have a serious character with a gravelly voice who's unrecognizable amongst every other action movie hero?

Sarcasm over.

What happened to flirtatious courting with Maid Marion? Now its just to boring people having long winded dry conversation. And instead of cavorting in Sherwood forest with Little John, Friar Tuck and the merry men its CG battles on Normandy beach.

They took the Merry our of our Merry men. I need to go watch Robin Hoek.

I seriously thought it was Lord of the Rings, 300, and Gladiator fused together, with a touch of grey poo colors. Plus I thought Robin Hood was more of a comedy but that's just me.

I can't understand why Hollywood is so obsessed with pre-existing stuff. We have video games being made into movies, television shows being made into movies, Japanese Anime being made into American movies, old movies being remade into movies. The sad thing is that those kind of movies end up looking bad, and yet they still continue on, which is what led to Shrek 4 apparently.

So that's what that movie is about. Geez. I really love the semantics on the plot line there.

It's just as bad as The Karate Kid remake. According to its producers, "the script will escalate language barrier conflicts and an international collision of world views into the bully-victim-turned-martial-artist tale.” I mean, it's bad enough that the kid learns KUNG FU in a karate film...but they had to make it a piece of social commentary about China as well.

Thanks for pointing out more horrible things about remakes! Gonna go lie in a ditch now...

Universal Pictures has made a splashy preemptive buy of Moby Dick (2011), a reimagining of the Herman Melville whale tale...

The writers revere Melville’s original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael, who observes how Ahab’s obsession with killing the great white whale overwhelms his good judgment as captain...

Ahab will be depicted more as a charismatic leader than a brooding obsessive. "Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s Moby Dick, " Cooper said. "This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual [CGI] effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story."

"We wanted to take a graphic novel sensibility to a classic narrative," said Collage. They brought it to the Wibberlys, the National Treasure scribes who are branching into producing...

The project then caught the fancy of Bekmambetov and Lemley, who teamed with the helmer on Wanted. Bekmambetov is developing a sequel to the Angelina Jolie starrer...

So glad you posted on this John! After seeing the preview, I could not help but think of all the great posts you have been making on the wretched degradation of the arts.

The only other piece of media, I've allowed myself to see on this movie was an interview with the [not so] Merry Men. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJcoeuu7hmE) Around 3:40 the actors explicitly state how they were told to be angrier! It's that whole "cool" BS trend you have been citing!

This crap ruined Star Trek. And now they had to go and ruin Robin Hood, too!! Is there any hope left that this garbage will go away?

I agree, The Dark Knight is to blame. Hollywood showed they could successfully reap a profit by sucking all the fun out of a character and making him "serious" and "realistic." "Forget all that fun stuff you get in the comic books and in the legends and in the short stories -- that stuff is completely unrealistic." Really? You mean it's all make believe? Geeze... And what's with this "dark" and "gritty" trend? What does dark and gritty mean? They want a dark and gritty Spiderman. They want a dark and gritty Hanna Montana. I mean, it's like these people talk in empty abstract terms. What they really mean, is "I want to copy the look of this other film, which to me, seemed dark and gritty." Some critic wrote they would like to see a Batman done by Michael Mann -- Yikes! Didn't we see that with TDK? Unfortunately a lot of non-batman fans suddenly became Batman fans overnight because of TDK and that's how you molest a great character. I for one wish Hollywood would stop trying to warp our grand narratives. Next up, Michael Mann adapts "Go Dog Go."

Regarding Sherlock Holmes... no, the movie was not faithful to Sherlock Holmes, if you are a Holmes fan. They include certain characters from the short stories... but Ritchie, once again, tried to re-invent the character and remove notable elements that the younger generation would not recognize. But an artist is supposed to make the audience appreciate the qualities of his subject, so nixing the deer skin hat was not really sensible in a tangible way other than to reconstruct a new persona. That being said, Downey's performance was good though obvious... and at least Ritchie tried to infuse the tale with a sense of high-adventurism --unlike Scott's sanguine take on Robin Hood, and Nolan's neutering of Batman.

A woman doesn't need to hack limbs off to be strong, no more than a man does. Marion's strength comes from her ability to see beyond her upbringing and expectations to do the right thing even if it puts her life in danger.

In general there is nothing wrong with strong women. In this case however it isn't about the character its about creating a one-dimensional marketing device. The strong woman has become a joke in these types of movies. They are even less interesting then they were in the first place.

It goes back to the whole 'tude thing. They are following in that same vein with "strong women."

I think that having "strong" one dimensional female characters is worse then having complex flushed out female characters who may not know how to swing a sword. That in itself doesn't make for a well rounded female character. She's just some distorted view of what a strong woman is. I mean its not like she wasn't a strong character to begin with.. coming from an elite class and being willful enough to see that Robin was in fact not a mere criminal but standing up against injustice! That is strength.

Of course it isn't! Being genuinely intelligent or clever in movies is purely short term thinking. What happens when people run out of intelligent or clever things to say?

What is modern is to tell the public what is supposed to be modern so that they can blatantly saturate the public with it until everyone genuinely believes that things couldn't possibly be done any other way.

Doing things this way is much more prudent long term thinking. Because that way, they can keep making the same thing over and over again until eventually reaching a point where they can make all their money back every time without having to put a single new thought into any of the movies they make ever again.

The public just has to adapt so that they become more compatible with this notion of "modern thinking" first.

The definition of being cool, perhaps, is the problem. When Indiana Jones shoots the swordsman, that was pretty cool. But trying to make the sequels all scenes like that strung together with crap is what ruined that franchise.

Also, I don't get why violence should be "believable" in movies with a bunch of angry people running around killing each other.

Hollywood is systematically going through every classic horror movie and ruining it, too, btw. Trying to make them idk, more realistic or something? Trying to make them appeal to a broader audience?

One more thing wrong with the article: "If you liked *Gladiator*, you'll love *Robin Hood*." Then why not make *Gladiator II*, which is what this looks like?

I'd list these as the components that make the Robin Hood story appealing (in the old ballads, in Howard Pyle, or in modern media) that seems to be missing in this movie: humor, small scale: small vs. biggish (small band of men vs. the sheriff and his many men), and that Robin could almost be you. This looks like just another war movie.

Mellanumi, yep, I agree Sherlock Holmes at least tried to be fun at parts and included some adventure. It wasn't a great movie by any means, but it was a decent popcorn movie.

The Dark Knight is actually kind of faithful to Alan Moore/Frank Miller's versions of Batman. I prefer a less serious take on the character, but it was not a bad movie. I though Batman Begins was terrible in the action sequences, though. And Batman could be better in both movies. Even if you want to go with a serious tone you don't need to make the hero so dark and uncharismatic or give him that horrible voice.

Because executives don't want to roll the dice (millions of dollars and their careers) on something nobody has heard of. There's actually a lot of creative people in this town. It's just nobody gives them the money to do something original. The people with the power to green light projects are pussies.

Alan Moore and Frank Miller's writing is laden and layered with irony and dark parody... none of which occurs in Begins or TDK. At face value, a Moore comic book seems to perpetuate the typical comic book mythology, but a closer viewing shows a mind that is constantly questioning the comic book universe the way most liberals question the reality of "The American Dream." Being a long time Batman fan, I have huge problems with TDK and Begins which most won't have (the plot holes are huge). If you look at the 80s comics, which came in an era of Reaganism, the trend was realistic but self-consciously glib and parodic... if Nolan is picking off the modern age Batman, he sure didn't capitalize on its tone. Year One was controversial when it came out... it tried too hard to make Batman realistic. Where it succeeded was in showing Batman's development and early years. Miller's writing really worked best in TDKR where Batman was taken to his logical conclusion. Now if you try to say Nolan was basing his films off the Golden Age Batman, then you still have problems of fidelity. Ultimately, Batman doesn't need to be changed at all (well maybe the costume). But the best incarnation of Batman has been Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's and Eric Radomski's amazing work on Batman the Animated Series. The series were fun, dark, and serious all at the same time. But then again these guys loved Batman all their lives opposed to Nolan who just was hired to put his thumbprint on the franchise.

The filmmakers have sent Robin Hood's acts of redistribution of income to the dustbin of history, yet he loves democracy in a strictly vague non-economic sense. He's the rugged American individualist as only an Australian can portray it. He inadvertently does great good for England in Act I by rigorous pursuit of self-interest.

Since Robin Hood's old, plausible ways of waging asymmetrical warfare would make him a cowardly terrorist today, in the 2010 movie, he fights in the open on horseback like a proper soldier. He's an everyman who does great good in Act I, but only as an inadvertent byproduct of seeking self-interest.

Robin & Marian live in parallel gender-political universes (which is their inalienable right), so it's no surprise if there's no chemistry there. All they have in common is that they don't need each other. As men & women, we're supposed to be flattered.

The sheriff of Nottingham is conspicuous by his absence. It may be because the whole tortured project started when the creators of "Sleeper Cell" pitched a story to the producer of "24" called "Nottingham". It was a sympathetic treatment of the lawman torn between his tyrannical government & an insurgent peasantry. By the end of production, they were all so sick of arguing about the sheriff that no one wanted to raise the subject.

I doubt this picture could be as bad as the 1991 version. ("Kevin Costner IS Robin Hood!") or more memorable. That's because they're neither authentic nor true, unlike the old myths.

Mellanumi, I totally agree with you about Batman: TAS being the best adaptation.

I'm not an expert on Batman or any superhero comic for that matter. I always found them boring.

However, I loved Batman Returns (IMO one of the best Tim Burton movies ever) and later I loved Batman: TAS.

So I got interested in Batman and I read a compilation of stories of different ages and there were fun for the most part.

I also read some of the serious ones, like The Killing Joke and Year One. I haven't read The Dark Knight returns.

I see Batman Begins as kind of inspired in Year One, but I actually found Year One MUCH BETTER than Batman Begins, though the first half of Nolan's picture was decent.

I read The Killing Joke a month ago or something like that and maybe I was too familiar with the Joker at that point, but I didn't find it that great. I guess it was revolutionary at the moment, but, after other stories about Joker's origin, I didn't enjoy it that much.

The Dark Knight is a pretty good movie but it still has some flaws, is way too serious-like the Joker says-and it doesn't really success in its "realistic" premise. Sometimes it's like a regular thriller, other times is just as fantastic as every other Batman movies.

Also, I don't know about The Dark Knight Returns but both The Killing Joke and Year One, while being "serious" stories in tone they still keep Batman as a charismatic, upright hero. Nolan makes him too "dark", violent and unpleasant...and not even in a demythologizing way, that could be interesting. He's just a very violent and "dark" guy that happens to be the hero of the movie even though he's probably the less interesting character in it.

Originality banned in Hollyweird. go back and read what John K. said about the cartoon industry in the 70s and 80s. They were not allowed to come up with anything original, only known stories and characters.

These days sure do feel like the 70s all over.

And if you dont like the doom and gloom, go spend your hard earned money on something poorly remade that tries preaching a bunch of bullshit when you could just go rent the ORIGINALS and be entertained. Go on, go waste your money. You'll learn, eventually.

I wasn't going to go see it because I hated gladiator and 300, and pretty much everything like that. Violence for violence sake with what is in my opinion very little or absolutely no story or dramatic aspect whatsoever.

However! This actually DID have story. And even, what I was expecting to be all gone, merriment. A small bit of it, but still it showed some of the relationship between Robin and his men!

I also liked the Prince John character in this one as I felt he was well portrayed. So this movie actually had some real characters. Which was nice.

It wasn't exactly the Robin Hood we would like to see maybe. I was hoping for the disguising clever Robin Hood. But I knew I wouldn't get it. However, this didn't disappoint me nearly as much and dare I say it, it was even an alright flick. D:

"This is par for the course, actually. Another typical day in the New Hollywood - run by aging, out-of-touch hippies who still think it's 1968. "

Ah ha! That's i truly think to Europpean comics executives these days. You should read their magazines like Spirou and Tcho these days. They have just comics and shitty games aged to young kids who will never know how a comic is really made and was conducted by the ones you mentionned. It shows perfectly how the medium goes on.

For proof i don't talk to the emptyness, they even made a comic version of one of their most biggest TV hits of the last 10 years: Oggy and the Cockroaches. (It's a Avery imitation, but i liked it better than the Dic's Tex Avery cartoon travesty.)